GeologicalScienceBlog - subjects include Geology, Climatology, Environmental Science, NASCAR, Beer, Property Rights, Random Thoughts, & Politics from a Christian Conservative/Libertarian/pragmatist viewpoint. As a Dad & Grandad, I am concerned about the overgrowth of government at the expense of freedom. Background - two degrees in Geology (BS '77, MS '90), started studying Geology beginning Senior Year of high school (1971 - 1972) <68>

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Obsessed With Quotas, They Will Keep Meddling...

to make things "right".

As reported by Allison Kasic on Townhall.com, there was a recent hearing on Capitol Hill regarding the under-representation of women in the academics of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).

Of course women are under-represented. My personal experience with the subject is that there weren't enough female geology students when I was in college in the 1970s and 1980s. That opinion is no doubt shared by numerous fellow male students of the time. It is better now, but it will never please the "quota bean counters". [Geologists are notorious for "talking shop" at parties, especially when there is a beer-in-hand. It is hard to find sympathetic female ears outside of our narrow realm, when we males talk about our scientific passions. Male geologists find women that understand the Bowen Reaction Series or Walther's Law to be very sexy. Especially if they understand that subduction leads to orogeny. Sorry, bad geologist joke.]

There are several plausible reasons for the paucity of women in science and other STEM fields, but as activists and politicians are wont to do, the answer has to be where government power (in the form of mandated quotas) can be most visible. Not necessarily most effective, but most visible. Remember, with liberals, style and appearance are more important than substance.

Also, the STEM-related departments in academia have generally been resistant to the pervasive infiltration of Leftist PC thought and something has to be done about that. One way or another.

It is not allowable to say "that is just the way it is", there has to be the actions of the "white male power structure" that results in the numbers that we see.

In Allison Kasic's column, Title IX was suggested as "the hammer" needed to bring about change. From the text of the column:

..."Another way to force change is pulling Congressional purse strings. The message from panelists was loud and clear: money talks and the government should leverage its funds to “ensure results.”

Gretchen Ritter from the University of Texas at Austin also envisioned university provosts holding STEM department chairs accountable for their hiring practices with strict financial consequences, such as a year-long hiring freeze. Translation: hire more women or else."...

Liberals have a long history of identifying a problem, then attacking the wrong entity, generally the easiest one.

By the time young people enter college, most of them have a mindset that is either:

1) Favorable to learning STEM-related subjects; or

2) Unfavorable to learning STEM-related subjects.

If you don't have a passionate interest in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (or maybe history) when you reach college, the die has most likely been cast. Interest (or passion) for these fields is led by curiosity about nature and how things work.

As to why there aren't more women in these fields, we have to look at several issues.

1) There might be biological reasons why women are not as interested in these fields as men, as in the ways our minds are "wired up". The very suggestion of this by former Harvard President Larry Summers caused some feminists to "get the vapors" and swoon, thereby costing him his job, even though he was otherwise a good, card-carrying Democrat.

2) Girls in grade school, middle school, and/or high school may be discouraged from pursuing STEM-related interests by mis-guided (union) teachers, parents, and peers. In general, kids that show interest in STEM subjects and related clubs are treated as "nerds" whether they are male or female, but there is additional pressure on girls because such endeavors are "unladylike". For those parents that are concerned about there daughters getting married if they are in those fields, I can only speak for geology. If their daughter is intelligent, passionate about science, and has a good personality, I can almost guarantee that she will get married if she enters geology. [Yeah, I have the outlook of a heterosexual male, so there.]

3) Some folks, male or female, just ain't interested in science.

Personally, I tried to get my daughter interested in science and she seemed to be, until middle school. It wasn't necessarily to get her to "follow in my foot steps", but if one has an innate curiosity of and an understanding about nature, it makes for a more well-rounded education. At that same point, my son is still interested, but I don't know if it will last.

In the closing of Allison Kasic's column, she naively offers hope that something positive might actually come from these hearing:

..."The October 17th hearing was the first in a series. Hopefully the upcoming hearings will show more of a commitment to honest debate. It’s foolhardy to jump straight to solutions without considering first if there’s a problem and its nature. Let’s hope that Congress gets back to the basics and takes a fresh, unbiased look at the subject at hand."

Sorry, but that is unlikely to happen. Liberal politicians have been given "new areas in which to play" and such programs are the "happy hunting ground" for lawyers filing lawsuits because "the numbers say that you are discriminating".

So, the bottom line is that it is largely up to the parents to make the changes. If their daughter(s) show an interest in science, help them keep that passion. Tell them that some might discourage them, but if they enjoy it, keep on "plowing" forward.

If these hearings get momentum, look for the "race baiters" to jump on board the bandwagon. The same thing applies, especially in Reasons 2 and 3 as to why there aren't more minorities in these realms. Especially regarding peer-pressure. When I have given talks at my kids' grammar schools, I find that black kids can be just as fascinated with dinosaurs (and other fossils) as white kids are. So we have to ask the difficult cultural questions about why the black kids are "getting knocked off course" if they show an interest in science. The unspoken truth is that they are discouraged for "acting white".

In closing, there is a shred of truth in the notion that discrimination is a reason for the lack of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but the problems largely begin years before, when these girls were in their early years of education.

But that probably won't be the target of these investigations. With power and money in play, the libs will target the "white male power structure".

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Posted by: on-the-rocks / 10:05 AM 0 comments
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Friday, October 26, 2007

A Must-Watch Video, Banned by YouTube

I don't have the link, but go to FrontPageMag and scroll down to the "The Violent Oppresion of Women in Islam".

Don't open it at work, don't watch it in front of your kids. But watch it. Don't turn away. This is ultimately what we are fighting when we fight the Worldwide Sharia desired by the Islamists. This sort of stone-age brutality has already spread to Western nations, e.g., Australia, Sweden, Holland, anywhere where there is an unassimilated Muslim community. Maybe they don't go as far as the routine "Honor Killings" in the western nations, yet, but other forms of oppression are in use.

If you have an "almost adult" daughter or someone else that wastes any moment of their time ever listening to the air-heads on The View, have them watch this. [Note: my daughter doesn't watch The View, I am just focusing on that particular demographic.]

It is not to engender hatred of all Muslims, but it is to remind us of the worst that could come if we lose this battle for civilization.

I bring this up because today is my sister's birthday, one month from now my daughter turns 21 and seven months from now, my daughter is getting married.

That is the big picture.

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Posted by: on-the-rocks / 11:38 AM 0 comments
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Just a Small Interruption

We are having some issues with our internet service at home, so if time permits, if I do any blogging this weekend, it will be from the library. The issue should be resolved by Wednesday of next week, if not sooner.
Posted by: on-the-rocks / 9:23 AM 0 comments
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Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Those 9 Inconvenient Errors in Al Gore's Move...

have grown to 35, according to this NewsBusters post.

That is according to this report by Christopher Monckton, on the Science and Public Policy Institute website.

Again, for the sake of brevity, I direct you to read this linked SPPI article. [I have to get back to work on my project. It pays better than blogging does. Heh.]

A few days ago, in a previous post, I stated most of Al Gore's mistakes (exaggerations) were related to two things:

"1) Assuming that correlation is evidence of causation; and

2) Assuming that every event in nature has only one cause." [Emphasis added.]

Add to that a couple more:

3) When confronted with a number of possible future scenarios, pick the scariest one, despite evidence showing that it is unlikely to happen, or at least in the short run. These scenarios ("scarios"?) are the result of computer models that show what might happen, based on the limited human abilities to foresee and quantify every future climate input.

4) These things have happened before, but it was before we had to ability to directly (or indirectly) observe on a real-time basis, take scientific measurements, and report the results or observations world-wide within seconds or at least minutes. When the Krakatau volcano exploded in 1883, the noise was reportedly heard 3,000 miles away and an estimated 36,000 people died from the explosion and tsunami (that may have been 100 feet higher than the Banda Aceh tsunami). In areas without telegraph lines, news had to arrive by ship.

With some of these scenarios, it is OK to say that they might happen in the next 1,000 to 10,000 years or beyond, as there is evidence of these things happening before. Large caldera-type "super volcanoes" have erupted in the Yellowstone area three times in the last 2.1 million years, the last time was about 630,000 years ago (or something in that time period). It will likely happen again, but probably not within the next 10 years. Humanity has not seen anything of this magnitude in at least the last 74,000 years, since the eruption of Mt. Toba in Indonesia.

There are few political and power-acquisition benefits in saying "nature is variable, we need to learn to adapt" by way of the free-market system.

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Posted by: on-the-rocks / 1:19 PM 2 comments
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Political Correctness Continues to Run Amok in the UK

Unfortunately that is nothing new as the UK continues to rot from the inside, partially over their efforts to please the unpleasible Muslim immigrants.

Moonbattery reports on a Scottish man that spent 2 days in jail and was fined £150 for "revving his engine" in a "racist manner". [Here is the original report.] The actual fine was for "breach of the peace".

Anyone with any knowledge of cars knows that British cars are notoriously temperamental, apparently even expensive ones. The racist-in-question, Ronnie Hutton, was admonished by a police officer for revving his Lotus Esprit's engine. Hutton later claimed that he was attempting to keep the engine from stalling (been there done that numerous times, myself). [I once had to do that for weeks with my '76 Jeep truck, after it backfired and screwed up the carburetor. As it was an obscure model of carburetor (a large 1-barrel carb on a 258 cu. in. six cylinder engine), the dealer had to wait several weeks for a rebuild kit to arrive.]

Hutton made two mistakes - there were a couple of Muslims standing nearby when he revved his engine and he dismissed the cop's admonishment with an expletive. [Generally, it is best not to cuss in front of police officers, unless you are agreeing with them. "Officer, I think you are doing a damn good job". Otherwise, it is just best to say "Yes sir/ma'am" or "No sir/ma'am"].

The Muslims took offense, one of them was quoted in the original article in this way:

"Asked in court why the man may have revved his engine, Hana Saad, 23, said through an interpreter, "Maybe because we are Muslim.""

This is one of the problems with bending over forward to protect certain classes of people through "hate crimes" laws. Often the victim gets to decide if a crime has been committed. And the British court system seems only too happy to serve the wants and needs of offended Muslims. And what happens there can happen here in just a few years. It is already happening with the supporters of illegal aliens.

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Posted by: on-the-rocks / 11:45 AM 1 comments
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Tuesday, October 16, 2007

I Can Hear Gomer Pyle's Voice Now...

saying to the Nobel Peace Prize committee - "For shame, for shame!" in regards of the people passed up for the Peace Prize, in favor of Al Gore.

Following up on a comment from Shamalama, here are a few of the 180 people that were deemed not good enough (they hadn't helped humanity as much as Al Gore):

Irena Sendler - a Polish woman who saved the lives of some 2,500 Jewish children during WWII;

Lidiya Yusupova - Chechen human rights activist;

Rebiya Kadeer - a leader of China's Uighur Muslim minority, living in exile in the United States;

Thich Quang Do - a Vietnamese Buddhist monk fighting for democracy and freedom of expression while living under house arrest.

To look at one of these people in more depth:

NewsBusters has this post about WWII Polish social worker Irena Sendler, worthy of a read and worthy of passing along to friends. From the Irena Sendler website:

..."Working with a network of other social workers and brave Poles, mostly women, she smuggled 2,500 children out of the Warsaw ghetto and hid them safely until the end of the war."...

continuing:

..."She entered the Warsaw ghetto, sometimes two and three times a day, and talked Jewish parents into giving up their children. Sendler drugged the babies with sedatives and smuggled them past Nazi guards in gunny sacks, boxes and coffins."...

continuing:

..."Once outside the ghetto walls, Sendler gave the children false names and documents and placed them in convents, orphanages and with Polish families."...

She stored the lists with the Jewish names and the Polish names, in jars buried under an apple tree on the property of one of her co-conspirators, in the hopes that they could be re-united with their surviving relatives after the war. The narrative on the website continues:

..."In 1943 Irena Sendler was arrested, tortured and sentenced to death by firing squad. She never divulged the location of the lists or her Polish underground contacts. At the last moment she was saved by ZEGOTA (an underground Polish group) which bribed a guard to secure her freedom. She still bears the scars and disability of her torture."...

Al Gore lost a close election in 2000, robbing him of his anointed destiny. Irena Sendlerowa risked her life to save 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto. Yeah, I see the difference.

Let's channel the voice of Gomer Pyle - "For shame, for shame, for shame!" while imagining his repeatedly raking one index finger across the other one, towards the Nobel committee. Did Al Gore read about any of the other people nominated? Did he ever say to himself "I really don't deserve to be considered with these people."

Somehow, I doubt it.

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Posted by: on-the-rocks / 2:08 PM 2 comments
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Those 9 "Little" Inconvenient Errors...

in Al Gore's movie are not receiving much airplay in this country. Wonder why?

In reviewing Al Gore's movie, a British judge found 9 errors significant enough to question the film's status as a "documentary". Apparently there have to be disclaimers issued before this movie can be shown in schools.

Al Gore, the political whore (nifty rhyme!), is only interested in the power that can be grabbed by him and his party, so don't expect him to directly address these issues.

The errors mainly stem from:

1) Assuming that correlation is evidence of causation; and

2) Assuming that every event in nature has only one cause.

Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters has this post from a few days ago that summarizes the 9 points of inaccuracy in Gore's movie, so you don't have to read my excessive blatherings.

So while the UK is generally collapsing, at least there are moments of sanity.

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Posted by: on-the-rocks / 11:08 AM 1 comments
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Friday, October 12, 2007

Sometime in the Future,...

If your vision is becoming blurry, your knees are starting to buckle, and all coherent thoughts are swept from your mind as you reach for a firm object to steady yourself - you are not receiving a "Monica" (or some equivalent).

You have just been experiencing a gorasm, brought about by the gas station pump register reaching $8, as the first gallon enters your gas tank.

Or a gorasm may be brought about by opening your natural gas bill and seeing a comma after the first number. Unlike the other "asm", it ain't a pleasant experience.

But it will be the expected side-effect of carbon taxes, windfall taxes, additional corporate taxes, additional environmental regulations, and further restrictions on oil and gas well drilling. All we need to do is elect a Democrat President and continue the Democrat Congress, or even some RINOs may go down the road to fulfilling the wishes of Saint Algore, even if he doesn't get elected himself.

The MSM is administering the "foreplay", designed to get us off guard, hoping that by the time we have our first gorasm, we will have forgotten how it all started.

So how do we stop this? First of all, find your nearest oilman and ask "How can I help?". He will take it from there.

[Note: some folks may substitute the word "goregasm" to describe the future affliction.]

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Posted by: on-the-rocks / 2:27 PM 0 comments
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When I First Heard That Ted Kennedy Had Surgery...

I was hoping that meant that they had removed the cranial obstruction from the last one-foot interval of his lower intestines, taking care of two long-term problems: 1) That persistent constipation problem and 2) The inability to see anything beyond personal or party interest.

But it was not to be.

Just damn!

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Posted by: on-the-rocks / 1:01 PM 0 comments
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Doing My Part for Global Warming...(I Hate Ice Ages)...

Our first good "cold snap" of the season took place last night with temperatures dipping into the high 40s. And it is supposed to do the same tonight. That means...

It's Chili weather! In preparing one of nature's perfect man foods, I will make use of a packet of chili spices purchased by my son at our recent Fall Festival. And making chili calls for a bottle of beer, some of which may be used in case the chili needs some additional flavoring (or something like that). I ain't supposed to have a beer, 'cause I gave blood this morning, but once the "need for chili" sets in, ya gotta do what ya gotta do. The spices smell good, but I am concerned that it may not be hot enough. If it doesn't cause a pleasant burn, then it ain't good chili. It is just some form of beef stew.

So chili means meat and beans, both of which "cause" global warming in their own way (don't tell Algore what I am doing). And no side comments, please, beans don't normally bother me - in that way.

I don't care if some purists say chili ain't supposed to have beans, but in the Texas spirit, I will put in anything that I damned well please. Thank you.
Posted by: on-the-rocks / 11:39 AM 2 comments
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Say it Ain't So, Joe!

Afraid so.

Algore and the IPCC win the Nobel Peace Prize. BFD!

The culmination of this Leftist circle jerk (ewwwwwwwww!) has meant very little since they awarded it to the terrorist Yassir Arafat and Jimmy Carter. And now the MSM will take over (the circle jerk, that is). [I use this base term only to illustrate the scientific usefulness of this debate and the circus that follows it. I have never been bored enough to take part in such inferred activities.] [Update: If you think I am exaggerating, read the linked NewsBusters post.]

If they had given the Peace Prize to Jimmah in 1978 or 1979 (before the Iranian uprising), it might have been forgiveable, as we wouldn't have known how much damage he had done in the Middle East.

The Nobel committee can award their politically-motivated prizes and throw around their prize money.

It doesn't make anything any more true.

The science is not anymore settled than it was yesterday. Al Gore the power-hungry politician wants it to be settled, but saying it is only perpetuates the Big Lie.

The carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere is small, 0.039%. And the human contributions to this content are small.

There are other things that humans do that could have as much, if not more influence on the climate than our minor carbon dioxide emissions. Deforestation and other land use pattern changes, e.g., the growth of Urban Heat Islands, and carbon particulates (soot) are difficult to plug into the vaunted IPCC computer models, so they ignore them. Human influence of the climate is not the same thing as human control.

It is about controlling economic activity and mobility. By controlling fuel use, you can control so much of human activity.

When I was a Classical Liberal, someone told me that tyrants create crises in order to grab more power. In the short run, we have to concern ourselves with a Socialist President, whether it be Al or Hillary. In the longer run, we have to concern ourselves with the ongoing UN desire to be a world government, a process that Al or Hillary would only be too happy to facilitate - for the children, they would no doubt say. We are taking things away from you for the children.

Maybe the only thing good about this is that Al Gore's speeding train will change course and head towards the White House, slamming into Hillary's train, derailing both of them at a critical junction.

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Posted by: on-the-rocks / 7:59 AM 1 comments
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Thursday, October 11, 2007

A Palpable Condescension...

is the way Gregory Koukl describes mindset the current "alliance" (my term) between the MSM/Hollywood culture and "militant" atheists. Christians are being labeled as "non-thinking", hateful cretins. There is nothing in the New Testament, to my limited knowledge, that suggests that Christians check-their-brains "at the door". We just have to understand that there are limits to our knowledge, that there is something larger than us and what knowledge "doesn't answer" lies beyond in the realm of faith.

Good scientists don't have to be atheists as long as they are open-minded enough to keep things in perspective. Perhaps one being a "fundamentalist" makes this a little bit more difficult. Thirty-plus years ago, one of my Geology Professors at Georgia Southern - in a private conversation with several students - stated that he had no problem with reconciling his Catholic faith with the concept of "evolution with a guiding hand". His open-minded faith was broad enough to accept God and "deep time". Nowadays we might call him an "Old Earth Creationist" and/or a proponent of Intelligent Design. In his later years, as he worked on restoring an important Late Eocene Epoch fossil whale skeleton, he probably had no problem accepting the concepts of working on a 40 million-year-old skeleton during weekdays and going to Mass on Sunday (and whenever else). Being a Christian doesn't automatically mean that you think the Earth is 10,000 years old or that "Noah's Flood" washed out the Grand Canyon.

Right now, as part of the Leftist agenda, the MSM and publishing houses are pushing the idea that it is "cool" to be an atheist. According to Say Anything, there are plans to resurrect part of the Air America radio network as an atheist radio network.

Americans in general and even most of America's Christians and Jews are tolerant of the atheist practices of others. But many of today's in-vogue atheists are not satisfied with simply trying to explain the reason for their "faith" in atheism, instead they feel it necessary to go on the attack, primarily against Christians and to a lesser extent, Jews. And before this atheist radio network crashes and burns, I am sure that the few listeners will probably hear some of the same.

I would submit to you the idea that many of these atheists and agnostics are simply reacting to something in their formative years, i.e., their atheism/agnosticism is a continuation of a youthful rebellion. Most ongoing parent-child "conflicts" will soften and fade away over time, as the child ages and the parents learn to accept what they cannot change. Often the birth of grandchildren does wonders for the relationships, as the "new parents" are thrust into the roles of their own parents, while the new grandparents can sit back and "get their vicarious revenge", hopefully all in good nature.

Our almost 21-year old daughter is working part-time as a primary school teacher in a small private school and as a nanny at other times. She is starting to sound "like us" with her charges (and she knows it). My wife and I simply tease her and say "Do you understand us a little better now?", to which we will receive a begrudging "Yes".

But when both sides are too hard-headed while the "child" is still at home, the grown child may carry the tension inside of them even after they move out into the world. Neither side wanted to lose face or back down. Or the parents may resign themselves to "the way it is" and become less combative, while the grown child, denied "the victory" in their younger years carries on "the fight". And it may simply be a clash of personalities causing only one of two or more children to leave home with a resentment

In some cases there are very real issues such as one or both parents use their Christian/Jewish faith as an excuse to carry on their authoritarian practices. Sometimes the authoritarians forget the teachings of forgiveness towards youthful transgressions.

Dr. Laura has related more than once about the fact that her parents were a mixed Italian Catholic - Jewish marriage and that she, as a product of that "mixed marriage", was treated much better by her Catholic relatives than by her Jewish relatives. My impression of my maternal grandmother is that she was authoritatively unforgiving of transgressions, disowning the oldest of her four daughters (for marrying "an alcoholic") and causing the youngest one to move to Phoenix after she was married. The youngest one is the "crazy aunt" on that side of the family, I never knew the oldest one.

Sometimes it is about matriarchs and patriarchs exercising their authority over their broods and sub-broods. My Dad had that experience. On the eve of WWII, while he and a male first cousin were both in the National Guard (or maybe the Army for the cousin), several of his aunts approached the two of them and "asked" that they officially profess their faith and join the Baptist Church, to "please" their grandmother. My Dad resented being pushed in that direction and stated that "that was not the proper reason" to make that decision, while the cousin did as "requested", but he didn't change his ways (unbeknownst to the aunts and grandma). So that cousin was the "favored one" and remained that way, though some of the attitudes softened a bit as the aunts aged. My Dad never told his aunts of the times he chose to bail his cousin out of jail for drunk driving, while he himself stopped drinking an occasional beer in the early 1950s. [My sister and I wondered about the reasons for the perceived favoritism and we found out while our Dad was in the hospital, during the 7 weeks before he passed away, when he chose to call in the preacher and "make his peace"].

My point in all this blather is that at least some (many?) of the people that engage in harsh, anti-Christian diatribes, e.g., Rosie O'Donnell, are simply deeply unhappy, lost people striking out against anyone that reminds them of their past unhappy familial relationships - with adults that may have had their own issues. Often dysfunction begats dysfunction, from one generation to another.

The atheist scientists, e.g., Richard Dawkins, that rail against Christians are simply a different form of authoritarian zealots, fearful of their turf being threatened. Just the philosophical opposite side of the same coin.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Most of the truth is probably "in the middle" between the zealots at either end. We take our knowledge and then we make our interpretations. Later we will find out to what degree we are right or wrong.

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Posted by: on-the-rocks / 8:56 AM 2 comments
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Tuesday, October 09, 2007

I Know, I Know...I Have Been Neglectful...

of my blogging duties.

I have been working on updating a geologic spreadsheet series in Texas now, maybe some other states later. I hope this job goes on for a while. Though I am having to relearn some of what I had forgotten, I enjoy the learning process and I can do this sort of work well.

Until I finish the first section and get paid, I won't have much time to blog or to even surf the blogosphere, except to sort of keep up with the news.

And I am suspending the Book-of-the-Week until further notice. I am reading a significant amount of the time, but it is online geological reports, abstracts, etc..

And when I am really concentrating, I even turn off talk radio for a while. Gasp.

Need your prayers for this project to go on for a while.

So be patient, please. If I run across something that really frosts me, I may do a short post or two.

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Posted by: on-the-rocks / 7:00 AM 0 comments
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Sunday, October 07, 2007

NASCAR Notes:

The Car of Tomorrow meets the Restrictor Plate at Talladega.

Michael Waltrip won the Pole Position in a Toyota, Toyotas were five of the top six qualifiers.

Tony Stewart is the highest-starting of the 12 "Chasers", starting in 11th position.

The Petty cars start in 8th place (#43 Bobby Labonte) and 12th (#45 Kyle Petty).

An open-wheel racer (Jacques Villeneuve) starts 6th on the field, as a total rookie. This is probably one of the scariest things today. Sometimes open-wheel drivers can be a little over-confident and perhaps arrogant, not realizing that some of their open-wheel (Indy cars, Grand Prix) skills are not applicable to stock cars on a high-banked racetrack. [They just said that he chose to drop to the back of the field to start and learn by watching those in front of him. I already respect him a little more for this choice. If he spins out on the first or second lap, the bulk of the field will be ahead of him, rather than behind him.

Eight of the 12 start outside the Top-20.

It will probably be an adventure, enough for me to stop reading about geology on the internet.

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Posted by: on-the-rocks / 2:14 PM 0 comments
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Friday, October 05, 2007

The Need for the Bully Pulpit

As supposed-Senator Harry Reid, et al, refuse to shut up about the Rush Limbaugh non-scandal (and the Bill O'Reilly non-scandal), President Bush needs to rise to the podium (and the occasion) and call down the yammering Democrats.

As for MSM and "liberal" pundits, he should address them obliquely, saying that we need the honest reporting of news in order for citizens to adequately discuss current events.

I am almost a charter-listener to Rush. I think I caught him in his first week of national broadcasts, in August 1988, on KTSM 1380, in El Paso. We had been out of town, visiting my family in Georgia and when we got back, I turned on the local talk station, expecting to hear the Classical Liberal Owen Spann (sp.?), instead I got Rush Limbaugh.

After listening for a few minutes, I began to wonder "who is this yo-yo"? I would get mad and turn him off, then turn him back on in a few minutes out of curiosity. As a Classical Liberal, I felt it was my "duty" to listen to "the enemy". Over the weeks and months, I listened and realized that some of what he was saying "made sense". Thus he played an important part in my metamorphosis from a Classical Liberal to pragmatic Conservative (or whatever it is that I am now).

Most of the time, I can gauge what Rush's take on a subject will be. He is strongly free-speech and strongly pro-military. As for his medical deferment, that was granted by the draft board. I don't know that he had any sort of help from political influence, unlike Al Gore. Rush's not serving in the military has done the military far less damage than John Kerry's semi-treasonous behavior after Vietnam. Our course Rush would know that service personnel protesting the war is a show of disunity, but his love for free speech would come through. Adults with any knowledge of Rush Limbaugh know this.

If you pay attention to recordings and transcripts of Rush Limbaugh's conversation with a caller, that triggered this non-scandal, if you pay attention to "the rest of the story", you will know that he was addressing specific cases where military service has been faked or exaggerated, e.g., Jesse MacBeth (sp.?). Though I didn't hear the specific broadcast, it is my understanding that Rush was discussing someone else's reporting on the "phony soldiers" issue.

The worst part of these Jesse MacBeth-type of charlatan is that it gives Aid-and-Comfort to the enemy through al-Jazeera and other outlets. How many terrorists have been inspired to kill Americans because of the false claims of Jesse MacBeth?

To know how we got to this point, go back and read the previous post from a couple of days ago. Among many other bloggers, Wyatt Earp has these thoughts on the subject. Pam at Blogmeiser USA has these more articulate thoughts.

The larger issues here are that the George Soros/Hillary Clinton/Media Matters/MSM juggernaut is getting warmed up to: 1) Attack the 2008 Republican Presidential nominee with a blizzard of lies and 2) "Justify" the Fairness Doctrine if they do gain the White House.

It is all about suppressing the debate. And defeating President Bush. Florida 2000 must be avenged.

To repeat myself, Islamist terrorists may use the Jesse MacBeth "story" as inspiration and American military personnel may die because of it (if they haven't already). That is what the MSM and these good-for-almost-nothing Democrat Senators should be investigating.

As with the Rodney King case, the Media lies - Americans die.

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Posted by: on-the-rocks / 6:41 AM 0 comments
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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Visualize a Flow-Chart...

['cause I don't know how to do one in this format. Besides, it is good to exercise your imagination from time to time.]

STEP 1: A Conservative pundit/politician makes a factual, logical point during a conversation or discourse on radio/TV or in print.

STEP 2: MoveOn.org/Media Matters commandeers the words of the pundit/politician and creatively cut-and-paste selected portions of the statements and feeds the "customized" product to the MSM and Democrat Party operatives.

STEP 3: The MSM "sits on" the product (as if to incubate it), while the Democrat operatives shout the "talking points" from the Capitol building and Sunday talkinghead shows (and wherever else there are TV cameras or microphones), while they pretend these are there own thoughts.

STEP 4: The MSM accepts the "original" statements of the Democrat operatives, subjects the statements to "in-house analysis" by designated talkingheads, highlighting key statements to use as headlines and hooks.

STEP 5: After a few days, a few selected talkingheads may be assigned to take a weak "contrarian" viewpoint to the Democrat utterances, in order to set-up a "good cop/bad cop" scenario and to keep the issue in the news for a few more days.

STEP 6: The MSM will only address the "out-of-context" protestations of Conservatives and the blogosphere, only if they are so egregious as to be unavoidable.

STEP 7: Selected parts of the Democrat-presented "facts" will be retained as "historical lore", to be repeated as needed on The View and other TV shows such as Boston Legal. If it is something "really good", it may get used in the next movie done by Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, and/or Michael Moore.

STEP 8: Wait for the next email from Media Matters/MoveOn.org, so the process can begin anew.

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Posted by: on-the-rocks / 8:49 AM 0 comments
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Regarding Last Week's Wishes...

3 out of 4 ain't bad.

My wife's paycheck "arrived" at the bank securely; the information regarding a new work project started coming in Friday, more arrived yesterday and I expect more today; and the Bud Light aluminum Halloween bottles are supposed to be in the store today.

The only thing missing are the wood chips. Because of the "exceptional" (once-a-century) drought, I can't transplant some shrubs, small trees, and plants because I couldn't legally water them afterward. I have taken to using some kitchen sink pan-soaking water to nourish one of my rose bushes in the front yard. And I can't burn any of the limbs that have fallen during the summer, so pulling English Ivy and covering the bare ground with wood chips represents the most progress I can make right now in yard upkeep. So that is why I am anxious about wood chips.

As for the work, it involves updating various geological databases, making sure that certain terminologies are consistent from one database to another. There is a little bit of a learning/re-learning curve. It is work-from-home computer stuff, so I won't have as much time to blog.

I am very thankful to have this, while I am still looking for something else to do part-time, as I can do some of the database upgrading at night. So thanks for any prayers that were offered.

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Posted by: on-the-rocks / 8:12 AM 0 comments
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